Drunk teens viciously attack trans woman and her friends during Manchester Pride weekend because she wouldn’t give them a hug
Actor Adam Ali filmed the entire attack and posted it to Instagram, after he felt police did not take it seriously. (adamsincerely/ Instagram)
Four queer people became the victims of an anti-LGBT+ attack by a group of teenagers on what would have been Manchester Pride weekend.
If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, actor Adam Ali would have been celebrating Manchester Pride the weekend of August 28. With no parade to attend, he and two friends went out for drinks, but their night took a turn they couldn’t have predicted.
Ali told PinkNews that having been “more or less turned away” from a bar, they decided to continue their Pride celebrations at home, and made their way back through Manchester city centre.
Less than a mile away from Manchester’s iconic gay village, however, they were approached by a group a teenagers who told Ali’s friend, a trans woman who has chosen to remain anonymous, that she was “beautiful” and “gorgeous” and asked her for a hug.
Concerned about social distancing, she politely declined. Suddenly, “they turned on her, they switched”, said Ali, and they began calling her “ugly” and “a tranny”.
“We just minded our own business,” he said. “We kept walking away, but from that minute on I decided I had to film everything.”
Ali continued: “One of the girls pounced on my friend, and she had a drink in her hand and I just knew she was just looking to pour it over her.” He “got in the way” to protect his friend, having a drink thrown in his face in the process, and asked the girl to leave them alone.
However, she quickly returned with her friends and the group began attacking the three of them.
Jack Weir, a member of the LGBT+ community, was standing nearby as the attack was taking place, along with many other bystanders. With no one showing any sign of intervening, Weir took it upon himself to help.
He said: “As they were walking our way and being harassed by the girls, the victim proceeded to politely ask her to back away and leave her alone.
“I got more concerned when she started hurling transphobic comments and threw her drink at everyone.
“She immediately breaks off to got get the rest of her mates, they circle back and it gets physical pretty quickly. As soon as it started my impulse was just to leg it over and push them out of the way.”
As he was trying to help, however, the group turned their attention to Weir and began attacking him.
“I couldn’t not do anything,” he said. “It was clearly a transphobic assault taking place.
“Trans people get 100 times more hate as it is so my instinct was to at least get their attention off her and on to me… they were dragging me down by my hair and swung me against a metal bollard pretty hard.”
Ali said: “Jack has quite long hair, and they kept pulling his hair, dragged him across the floor. All of them were beating him, kicking him in the stomach… chunks of hair were coming out of his head.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CEgwoHwhZOA/
At this point, Ali decided to run back to the gay village to find a police officer.
He said: “It takes me like two, three minutes to run back to Canal Street. Then, I see the police and I’m just screaming: ‘My friend’s been attacked, hurry, hurry.'”
He ran back with two police officers, and having been gone for around 10 minutes he found Weir still being beaten.
The police officers separated the attackers, and “simply walked them away”. Ali said that the officers believed that they had been attacked, but were not interested in seeing his video showing the entire incident.
The four victims were left waiting for more than an hour, said Ali, and police did not seem “concerned that we’re in a state of shock and we shouldn’t be on the street and it’s cold, it’s the middle of the night”.
He continued: “I’m sat there with my friends like in disbelief crying my eyes out, bawling my eyes out… [The attackers] weren’t taken to jail or, you know, prosecuted or anything.
“No, they just got driven out of town and removed from the situation. So they basically got dropped off home, in other words.”
Greater Manchester Police confirmed to PinkNews that four people had been arrested on suspicion of breaching the peace following the incident and that an investigation was underway.
“We treat reports of this kind with the utmost seriousness and do not tolerate hateful behaviour towards an of our communities,” said inspector Jonathan Shilvock, of GMP’s city off Manchester district.
“I would like to reassure members of the public that our investigation is ongoing and we are committed to ensuring anyone who committed a criminal offence faces justice.
“Greater Manchester Police has an active Pride network and works closely with members of the LGBT+ community to ensure they are treated fairly and equally.
“Victims are encouraged to report crimes via the police, Crimestoppers (anonymously) or the LGBT Foundation, who can offer specialist support.”
Ali is British Arab, and said he suspects the reaction would have been different had the attackers been people of colour.
“I’m thinking had those people been from a different demographic, maybe Black men… that would have been a completely different ballgame,” he explained.
“No one is taking it seriously. No one is choosing to tell our story, or to highlight that Manchester is not safe for queer people in particular.”
“This is a frequent occurrence in our lives, and it seems to be like people will only report the story if it’s a specific type of person. No one seems to be interested in any other parts of the community.
“On Canal Street in general, anyone you ask will tell you how white-washed it is there, there doesn’t seem to be a place for [people of colour]. We don’t even have any significant Black drag queens in Manchester.”
The actor added: “The irony is that it was Manchester Pride weekend, how the hell do you expect to celebrate Pride and celebrate this culture, this city we live in, when it’s literally not safe for us to walk on the streets.
“Like, what are we actually celebrating?”
Weir went to the hospital to check for a concussion, but luckily none of the victims were seriously injured.
Anyone with any information regarding this incident should contact GMP on 0161 856 4275 quoting 3244 of 29 August 2020. Alternatively, contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.
